Japan: Yamada Denki, Hitachi Metals, Hoya Corp, Ohsho Food Service and more

In today’s briefing:

Yamada Denki – GINORMOUS Buyback To Dramatically Boost EPS and ROE

Yamada Denki (9831 JP) reported earnings (Revs -7.6% (slight beat), OP -28.6% (slight miss), NP -2.4% (slight miss)), and slightly upbeat forecasts to Mar-2023 (Revs +4.6%, OP +12.5%, NP +2.9%)
They also announced an unchanged dividend at ¥18/share, and a VERY BIG BUYBACK. This is one of the largest, most aggressive, on-market buyback programs I have ever seen.
Previous buybacks have been duds. Yamada Denki is not playing around this time. This time it will be a buy.

Last week Hitachi Metals (5486 JP) reported decent earnings and strong forecasts against what is probably significantly stale consensus expectations.
“The Consortium is not aware of any significant problems with procedures/responses under the Competition Act and will continue to strive to complete these procedures and responses as early as possible.”
That caused a jump, but that is the same language used in the 30 Nov 2021 release. Yes, I think this gets done, but Reward/Risk is smaller now.

Hoya’s 4Q beat slightly with revenue beating consensus by 2.2% and PBT beating by 7.0%.
Those beats were better than peers such as Advantest and Lasertec and qualitative guidance suggests that YoY growth is likely driven by the Lifecare segment in particular.
That contrasts with our negative outlook for peer momentum and we expect Hoya’s recent underperformance to reverse in short order.

All-store sales of 6.649bn yen (107.7% vs. April 2021) were the record high for April. In-store dining sales were 118.4% vs. April 2021, and delivery sales were 111.8% vs. April 2021.
In April, the company opened two new stores (two directly-owned stores) and closed one store (one franchised store)
The company announced that it would raise the retail price of approximately 20% of all items on its grand menu by 20 to 30 yen excluding tax, effective May 14

Before it’s here, it’s on Smartkarma